why were you holding out on us. but to some degree, they are a serious country and they look at their serious problems and we haven't quite done as well as they did over the last 20 years and then when the stimulus came we tried to pump it up short term. they said no. we're goinging to stick with our long-term perspective. and it helps by the way to be a con shen-- consensus driven political culture which they have and we don't. >> does britain have a consensus driven -- >> no, sweden and denmark do, they have been okay. >> does russia. >> no, they have something else. >> the "new york" magazine wrote a piece called reasonable man by christopher beam in a world of loud voices and extreme positions david brooks manages to be a relevant and absolutely essential. you talk about a writing a column as a failure because you cannot do what you want to do in a column. >> well, you know, when you write a column you have at most three days, usually a couple of hours. when you read it the next day, there is always stuff would